


it's not a relay, it's a marathon

by Accidentallytechohazardous



Category: Bleach
Genre: Coming Out, Established Relationship, Friendship, Gender Identity, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Misogyny, M/M, Other, delivering the canon content that i both want and deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 20:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18431237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidentallytechohazardous/pseuds/Accidentallytechohazardous
Summary: Rukia has some difficult questions. Renji tries to have helpful answers. Sure, facing down hollows and arrancar and quincy is scary, but it’s got nothing on confronting the doubts inside yourself.“There is no stronger bond of solidarity in this world than the one between a WLW and her MLM.”–Walt Whitman, maybe





	it's not a relay, it's a marathon

Whenever she came to Karakura Town, Rukia had a certain pattern she liked to patrol.

Renji followed diligently as they cycled around the city, stopping at seemingly random places. The high school. The riverside. Certain roads. A condemned hospital. A cemetary. None of which he understood, but all of which must have some kind of significant meaning.

She liked to be up high as well, hopping up on telephone poles and treetops when Renji would be just as happy on the ground. It’s called the sidewalk, Rukia. People made these to be used. Nonetheless, Renji followed her. Because yeah.

“It’s a matter of strategy.” Rukia said importantly, sitting on the edge of a tall tower with her feet dangling off the edge into oblivion. Hundreds of feet below her were people and cars and buildings and the unyielding force of gravity, but she kicked her heels like she was dipping her toes in a shallow pond. “From a high vantage point, we can keep an eye on the entire town. How do you expect to spot a hollow appearing miles away if you’re on the ground level?”

Renji dropped next to her, grunting as he fell on his ass and his tailbone hit the hard cement. Curse his comically gangly legs. “Dunno. I figured we would just sense the hollow’s presence when one appeared. It’s not like we’re Ichigo.”

“There are lots of creatures that kind hide their reiatsu, you know! We can’t afford to get complacent. Can you imagine if some kind of disaster happened when two supposedly captain-level officers were on duty? We’d never hear the end of it.”

“You need to relax a little bit. This town has no less than ten super-powered individuals in it at one time with nothing better to do than sit on their butts and wait for chaos. I highly doubt that anything is going to catch us off our guard–”

The shrill beeping of Renji’s soul communicator shrieked from within his pocket. Alarmed, Renji scrambled with the folds of his shihakusho to pull the phone out from within his robes, misjudged the location of his hands versus the communicator, and juggled it over the edge of the twelve-story drop for approximately fifteen seconds.

As quick as he could, Renji snapped open the communicator and held it to his ear, questions raced through his mind. Did the Twelfth Division find traces of something, and a Hollow had snuck into the city after all under their watch? Did something happen in Soul Society?

“Lieutenant Abarai speaking.” Next to him, Rukia jumped to her feet, ready to go at the first sign of trouble.

A dry, soft, familiar voice came over the receiver. “Good evening, Lieutenant Abarai. Is this a bad time?”

“Izuru,” Renji smiled, relief coursing through him. Rukia’s stiff shoulders dropped. “No, Rukia and I are just keeping an eye on things. It’s pretty dead out here so far.”

“In that case, can I let Shuuhei know you’ll be home for dinner later tonight?”

Izuru sounded hopeful; and Renji’s heart ached to be home so suddenly he could have forgotten he was technically on the job right now at all.

Renji sucked air through his teeth. “God, I wish. Our patrol isn’t supposed to end until the wee hours of the morning, I think we’ll be lucky if we get home tonight at all.”

Which probably meant for Renji instead of a hot bath and generous second-helpings of Shuuhei’s cooking, he would probably crash at the Shoten for a few hours of sleep and no breakfast. Though maybe if Renji stared through the window at Ichigo pathetically enough, he’d let both him and Rukia squeeze into his cramped dorm room for the night.

Over the line, Renji could practically hear Izuru frowning. “That’s too bad. You and Kuchiki-san will be safe out there, right?”

“Of course we will. You two don’t go having too much fun without me.”

“Hmm? Or what? You’ll come home and discipline us?” Izuru purred, and thank God Renji didn’t put this call on speakerphone.

Renji rolled his eyes. “You wish. I’ll call you later tonight, okay? I miss you.”

“I love you, Renji.”

“Love you too.”

Renji returned the phone to his pocket, and the grating of Rukia’s sandals against the cement as she shifted her weight caught his ears. He glanced up at her at the same time she looked down at him, all big indigo eyes, before looking away at the cityscape. Awkwardly, she swung her hands at her sides in fists before folding them over her chest, like she didn’t know where to put her arms.

Renji pulled his knees up and cleared his throat, trying to let the sound cut through the sudden embarrassment.

Maybe she had heard his and Izuru’s saucy joking after all. That would be so mortifying! Maybe it was the way Renji spoke to his partners in such a sappy voice. ‘I miss you’. ‘Love you too.’

Well, Rukia knew about the relationship, so it really wasn’t a big deal if she heard him talk to his boyfriend like… well, a boyfriend. If it was Ichigo or one of the other teens, Renji could feel justified over his embarrassment. Renji and Rukia were mature adults, so he was really getting worried over nothing.

“Renji.”

Rukia always said his name in such an important way. She pretty much said everything in an important way, but he liked the way Rukia said his name in particular.

(Somehow it was the complete opposite of her brother, who made something even as simple as a name vaguely uncomfortable. Like, Byakuya could call Renji by his given name, but Renji couldn’t address his captain by his. As if Renji wasn’t even worth a title.)

“Yeah, what’s up?”

Rukia brought her hand to her chin, thinking hard. “Can I ask you something?”

This oughta be good. Was it about Renji’s love life? His relationship to two other co-workers? Rukia could be pretty blunt sometimes, Renji didn’t know how to match her intensity.

“Why do you always stay overnight at Urahara’s? You could always ask Sado or Inoue if they have room.”

Renji sighed out of his chest. “Nobody else has offered. And it feels weird inviting myself over to someone else’s place.”

Also because it would be like admitting that Urahara, Tessai and the kids successfully chased him out of their house with their constant teasing. Renji was not a moocher and a deadbeat, goddammit. One day they’d all see. He was a  _delight!_

“Really?” Rukia’s brows rose under her bangs. “I’ve never had a problem inviting myself over to someone’s place.”

Somehow, Renji wasn’t shocked by that.

“May I ask you another question?”

“Shoot.” Renji said, and began to hoist himself to his feet. He groaned a little as he lifted himself onto his knees. Stupid desk. Sitting at it all week was turning him into an old man.

“When did you know that you were gay?”

Oh, hello, 100-foot drop onto the pavement. Renji started too fast, his spine stiffening and a rush of blood to his face that made him feel lightheaded. His toes gripped the curl of the roof to keep from teetering over the edge of it.

“Renji!” Rukia yowled and grabbed too fistfuls of the back of his robes to pull him away from the ledge and steady him. “What’s the matter with you?”

Renji turned and knocked her hand away with his elbow. “It’s your fault for startling me! You can’t just ask somebody a question like that out of nowhere!”

“You said I could ask a question!” Rukia put her fists on her hips stubbornly. “Besides. I wanted to… to ask someone who I could trust.”

Man, Rukia always knew exactly how to pull his strings. Renji shut his eyes and pulled on a strand of his ponytail, gathering his thoughts. “Fine. I get it. It’s just… I don’t really have an answer for that off the cuff, you know?”

“I’m sorry. Just forget about it, pretend I didn’t say anything.”

Rukia was so weird. Always had been. Renji had known her for most of his life, and he still had trouble telling what she was thinking. She only got more complicated with time, too. Bad luck seemed to gravitate towards Rukia, and every misfortune was another wall she put up to protect everyone around her.

Was Rukia questioning her own sexuality? Renji could imagine that in the Kuchiki house, there wasn’t a lot of room for exploration and experimentation. Perhaps she had been bottling this up, waiting to confide in someone.

Renji exhaled deeply. “I think on some level, I always knew. Not exactly that I liked men, per say. But in the academy, I definitely felt like I was different from most other boys, and it wasn’t just because of the Rukongai thing. But it wasn’t until I was pretty much already grown that I figured out how all those pieces and feelings fit together. You get what I’m saying?”

“Kind of.” Rukia wouldn’t meet his eyes for more than a second. Her cheeks had a rosy tint to them, glowing with self-consciousness in the evening dark. “When did you start actually, like, dating men?”

“Uhhhh…” Renji racked his brain. What even constituted as a date back then, when he was still figuring all the ins and outs of his identity? The fine line between a platonic going-out and a real date could be blurry if you weren’t totally sure what you wanted it do be. “Still not for a while after that. I must have been in the Eleventh Division by then, because Ikkaku-san helped me out a lot with that part.”

“I see.” Rukia tucked her hair behind her ears. It appeared she was looking somewhere distant, completely in her own mind.

“Do you,” Renji gestured in the air vaguely. “Think about women that way at all?”

“Yes.” Rukia said it so quickly and so firmly it surprised him. “I definitely think– I mean, I know. I wasn’t sure at first, and it’s still hard for me to talk to women in that way.”

Romantically, honestly. Without fear of rejection or humiliation. Renji could relate to it all, and he tried to smile in such a way that Rukia would catch the waves of encouragement he was trying to set to her. “Dating and romance stuff comes with practice, trust me. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“It isn’t that–” Rukia’s brows knit into a frown. “It’s like, every time I try to get physically close to another girl, it feels as if something is pulling me back. Like there’s an invisible wall I can’t get through.”

Renji wished he had some kind of solution or cure for that. But, of course, if he did he would have used it on himself a long time ago instead of fucking around with his own internal issues and strife for over a hundred years.

He knew how she felt though. And he still felt it sometime. A creeping inadequacy. A daunting, invisible weight. A shadow passing over their souls.

When Renji put his hand on Rukia’s shoulder, he was reminded how goddamn small she was compared to him. Her shoulderbone stabbed into the soft palm of his hand like a knife.

Even with her face tilted down towards the ground, he could see her eyes wet and red around the rim from fighting back her emotions. And it drove Renji wild with rage.

“I know it’s hard, but you’ve gotta keep going.” Renji said. “Every time you try to be yourself, it gets a little bit easier the time after that. You don’t have to do it all at once, but it’s gotta start somewhere.”

Renji could not remember the last time Rukia hugged him. She had never been too physically affectionate, aside from the occasional joking swat on the arm or climbing over him like a jungle gym.

This time she surprised him, hooking her elbows around his waist and clutching his back. Rukia’s cheek pressed into his chest.

Renji felt like he was a little kid again, and at the same time he felt very, very old. He put one hand on the small of Rukia’s back and one hand on the back of her head, carding his fingers through her short, silky black hair.

He breathed in and out. Renji loved her. He loved her so much. Like a friend and a brother and a father and a son all at once. He loved her more than he thought was possible.

When an appropriate amount of time had passed. Renji rubbed the space between Rukia’s shoulder blades with his thumb.

“So,” He asked with a grin. “Who are these women you’ve been getting ‘close’ to?”

Rukia groaned, and she headbutted his chest rather painfully. “It’s a long story, okay? Can we just keep having a nice moment like this?”

“Do you wanna know which of women lieutenants are gay?”

“Yes, yes I do.”

 

* * *

 

Gone are the days that Renji could worry about accidentally hurting Rukia during training because he didn’t know his own strength. Sportsmanship was all well and good, but nothing sucked like having to dislodge yourself from an iceberg and then you got pneumonia in the middle of July.

Anyway.

When they take a break from sparring, Renji noticed Rukia struggling to flatten back her hair off her sticky brow.

It was growing out from the cute bob she had it chopped into, getting longer and shaggier. Rukia’s hair had always been thick, prone to tangling when it got long. Somehow she never cottoned on to this as a little girl when it picked up twigs and leaves like it was its job.

Renji put a hand to his own head, feeling the pin and the tie holding his ponytail in place and slipping it out of his red locks. His fingers ran through his hair, shaking it out a little as it draped down the mid-point of his back and nearly to his waist. Fortunately, his own hair was long enough that Renji could tie it up into a knot on all its own, so pulling it out of the way was no problem. “Turn around.”

Rukia fussed and groused, but sat with her knees pulled to her chest while Renji kneeled behind her and carded her hair through his fingers.

“I can’t believe how much your hair gets into your face. You gotta either cut it or start pinning it back out of your eyes.”

“Matsumoto never ties her hair back.” Rukia pointed out.

“I don’t know what kind of explanation for Matsumoto that you want from me.”

With her hair pulled away from the sides of her face, the shape of Rukia was much more pronounced. The bump of her chin stood out, as well as the lines of her jaw that her hair usually softened.

Renji spoke without really thinking, almost more to himself. “You’d make a pretty boy.”

Rukia actually laughed at that, jostling the newly made poofy ponytail at the back of her head. “That’s the only possible way I can imagine you flirting with me.”

“Behave yourself.” Renji gave Rukia’s ponytail a sharp tug. “I’ll remind you I’m spoken for.”

“Well, thank you very much anyways. And I think you’d make a lovely lady, too.”

Renji scoffed, and slipped the hairpin into Rukia’s hair. “Sure. A lovely, huge, beefy, tattooed lady.”

“Yeah! You wouldn’t want to hang out with someone like that? If I saw a tall girl with muscles and tattoos, I would be like ‘she seems really interesting, I want to know her deal’.” Rukia insisted. “You would make a great girl.”

“Sure.”

A few crimson bangs floated in front of Renji’s eyes. He reached up to push them aside, tucking them behind his own ears before he realized he had just mirrored the same way that Rukia tucked hers.

Thoughts buzzed around in Renji’s head, at first quiet them progressively louder and louder. He must have been silent for a while (although for Renji that wasn’t saying much in the first place) because eventually Rukia looked over her shoulder to see what had stopped Renji’s usual overflowing fountain of chatter.

“I wanted to be,” Renji said. “When we were younger, I think. Maybe I thought I would have been more like you if we were both girls.”

_Like sisters_. Renji’s impulsive brain conjured the thought before he could tamp it down. Rukia already has a sister. Had a sister. She was dead now. That didn’t mean Renji had any chance of stepping in and filling that particular slot on Rukia’s very strange family tree.

“Hmm.” Sitting on the grass, Rukia turned her body around that she could face Renji. She reached up and tenderly touched her fingers around the back of her head. Her hair was short enough that a few strands were already slipping out of the tie. “Do you still think about that? Being a girl?”

One day Renji was going to sit down with Rukia and have a little conversation explaining tact in personal questions. Except he probably won’t because Renji had never been great at telling Rukia what to do, and anyways at least this way he had someone to keep him honest.

“Hmmm…” Renji said for way too long. Now he was the one avoiding Rukia’s eyes, glancing down at his lap. “It’s not really that simple, Rukia. Like, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I don’t want you to say anything. But I’d like you to feel like you can trust me, and that I’ll understand whatever you have to say.”

Rukia gave him a strong, powerful look that Renji was not sure he could return. There must be some kind of instinctive, leaderly quality to Rukia that drew people to her so. Whether it was the confidence that she projected or the fact that she really would try to understand them to the best of her ability.

By Soul Society standards, Renji was a fairly young man. But he was also so, so jaded and felt so, so old sometimes. He’d gone through so much and barely bullshit his way through, it felt like there are very few things that can surprise him anymore.

Except for Rukia, who would always, always, always cut into the heart of him and would always make him question what he thought he was sure of.

“You remember what you told me, right? Every time you try to be yourself–”

“Rukia, I know what I said–”

“It gets a little bit easier the next time.” She finished sternly.

 

_And it’s gotta start somewhere._

Renji sighed. There was no point in arguing against somebody who was always right. Although technically, since Rukia was quoting him, Renji would be arguing with himself?

“I’m still figuring out what it means. How this works.” Renji said eventually. He ran his fingernails over the back of his neck, catching his long hair through his knuckles as he did so. “I’m tired of being told to toughen up. To man up. I wanna try to talk and look and act without thinking about if I’m doing everything the ’right’ way.”

“I kind of know what you mean. The Kuchiki family has so many cousins that can’t stand me, but they pretend to be nice just to suck up to my brother.” Rukia leaned one hand against the grass and frowned. “I get all kinds of jewelry and make-up and clothes that don’t suit me at all, you can clearly tell they were given to me just because I’m a woman. I hate to complain about getting gifts, but…”

“They’re gifts, but they’re not really gifts for you.” Renji finished for her.

“Exactly.” Rukia drummed her other hand against her knee, tapping her fingers. “I can just give them to you. Nii-sama won’t notice that they’re gone, and I sure won’t miss them.”

“Eh?” Renji balked. He couldn’t accept an offer like that, right? It wasn’t just jewelry and makeup and clothes like Rukia had said, this was noble, fancy, rich people jewelry and makeup and clothes. And if someone found out, Rukia would definitely get into all levels of trouble.

But before he could even deny her, he saw that determined look on her face. Rukia stood up on her knees and shook the dirty off her uniform like a wet dog. “Don’t give me anything about how you’re too proud to accept hand-me-downs! They’re not getting any use in my closet, you’ll be doing me a huge favor.”

“Am I ever gonna be able to win with you?”

“No.” Rukia pulled on his shihakusho with a weight that was not unsubstantial. Fuck, she was getting strong. The tugging didn’t begin to subside even a little until Renji gave in and stood up. “Let’s get cleaned up first. I can’t tell whether that funky, sweaty smell is from me or from you.”

“I bet it’s me.”

“It isn’t a competition.”

Renji watched Rukia fold her arms over her head, leaning back and stretching out her spine. She was so beautiful and brave and kind. Better than perfect.

Renji wanted to be a lot of people, or at least he thought that he did. He thought he wanted to be powerful and dignified like Byakuya. Or he wanted Ichigo’s courage and determination.

In the end, though, it was always her. Her grace and her strength and her heart was what Renji wanted, so he could be worthy of putting himself on equal footing with her greatness.

But he had to start somewhere.


End file.
